Sprout Magazine

Bioshock Infinite’s Story Explored In Detail (Spoilers!)

Bioshock Infinite came out on March 26th, 2013. It is the latest game under the Bioshock name, though the story has no real connections to the previous two games. This game, unlike the second Bioshock, is capable of following the original which came out years before. This game has been a long time in the making and it shows.

Bioshock Infinite is a First Person Shooter, just like the previous two games. The player has access to both guns and what are now called vigors instead of plasmids, which allow the player to do things like shoot lightning or a flock of crows from their hands. Most things are similar, with vending machines providing upgrades and items for sale. The player can no longer carry extra health kits, and is only able to hold two weapons at a time. The game focuses more on picking up weapons that you need for whatever situation you’re in, or grabbing a new one when you run out of ammunition.

The first 15 minutes of this game were absolutely incredible, captivating me. I’ve played through those first minutes multiple times, and I intend to do so again. I don’t want to spoil that amazing scene, just know that after playing that, you won’t be able to put the game down.

All that being said, I didn’t really play the game for the gameplay, I played it for the story. It was a complicated and deep story, one that shows how video games can have captivating stories, just as movies and books can. I will do my best to explain what I can about the story here.

The story revolves quite a bit around the concept of the multiverse. Basically there are an infinite number of worlds out there, each following different possibilities. In this game, it is extremely important to listen to the audio recordings on the voxophones as they will facilitate your understanding, even if you don’t know it at the time you hear it. An example of the multiple universe theory is when the Lutece twins (More on them later) ask you to flip a coin and it comes up heads. You see on the board they have that it has come up heads many times, never showing tails. There is a universe where every time you flip a coin it will come up heads.

The story starts well before the game does. In order to make it easier to understand, I will go over the story points chronologically, rather than the order in which you learn them. Booker Dewitt is at the battle of Wounded Knee, and though you never learn exactly what he did, you know that he relished in the murder and slaughtered a lot of people. It is after this point that the story begins, because there is one specific choice he makes, which is one universe. I believe that at this point, he does not have his child Anna with him. In this universe, he goes to a baptism in order to absolve himself of the crimes he committed. From there, there were two choices he could make. One was to reject the baptism, which left him as the same man, Booker Dewitt, who you control during the game. If he went through with the baptism though, he became a new man, and changed his name to Zachary Hale Comstock, becoming the prophet of Columbia with the help of Rosalind Lutece. See the voxophone where Comstock talks about one man going into a baptism and another man coming out. Using Lutece’s machine, which I believe to be the siphon, they were able to move between the worlds, allowing for them to gain wealth and build the city together. Lutece also met herself, in male form this way. I think that they are the same person, just from different worlds. Using their knowledge though, they are able to be together. Comstock was also able to see the future in order to predict things, thus becoming a prophet. Due to overexposure to this though, Comstock found himself unable to have children. For this reason he went back into the world he had left behind, and took Anna from Booker Dewitt (himself) whom he detested. It is during this instance when the portal closes and cuts off Anna (renamed Elizabeth)’s pinky. I believe that it is due to this that Elizabeth is able to open the tears between the worlds. Then, because Comstock’s wife and the Luteces knew about this, he had them killed. The Lutece’s however, met in another world and brought Booker Dewitt into Comstock’s world for revenge and to right the wrongs they’ve caused. This happens just before the beginning of the game. Then Booker goes to Columbia, and does everything you see in the game. Everything happens just as Comstock predicts it will, and Elizabeth ends up drowning New York in flames. She gives Booker clues to give to Elizabeth though, and sends him back in time to where he needs to be to save her. He rescues Elizabeth and the two of them get away thanks to the old Elizabeth’s clues. They enter an area between all the worlds, and she tells Booker how there are an infinite number of worlds and how the only way to stop Comstock is to keep him from ever being born. Booker agrees, though at the time he did not know that he was Comstock. Elizabeth takes him back to before the baptism, and there all of the Elizabeths from different worlds (though only a few of them make an appearance rather than an infinite number) drown Booker. After the credits you see Booker back in his apartment, and you hear a child. I take this to mean that with that course of action erased, none of the events within the game will ever happen and now Booker can raise Anna.

That’s my take on the game, and of course there is more to it, this is the way to make it easily understandable. Let me know what you think. I’m not entirely sure of everything myself.